Photos, Words And Tutorials On Life.

‘Choosing’ Happy

“Nothing in the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity”
– Martin Luther King JR

If you’ve ever been depressed, you will have heard those beautiful words strung together, why can’t you just be happy, whether it be that someone meant it as a way to cheer you up or someone just said it out of plain stupidity and ignorance. I’m here to explain why someone with a dark uncontrollable storm in their head can’t just choose to be happy.

The first time someone said this..well questioned me about this, I was taken aback. It wasn’t meant as a positive thing, they meant it maliciously. At the time I was thinking “wow thank you, you cured my depression, I owe you my life” but now that I look back on it I got thinking. Why can’t we actually do that? Well there’s multiple reasons.

When you’re depressed, often times when you aren’t feeling absolutely anything you could be feeling a combination of the following things:
– Sad
– Happy (not the happy you are used to)
– Empty
– Hopeless
– Lonely
– Angry
– Frustrated
– Horrible
– Weak
– Numb
– Shitty
I could go on honestly. But basically, you can’t just switch off your feeling like a light switch and ‘choose’ to feel a normal kind of happy. If you haven’t been depressed I’ll put it in a sense that might help, think of the time you got so mad that nothing could calm you down, and someone tells you to calm down and you kinda get a little worse? It’s almost like that.

Nothing you used to do will make you happy anymore, not even talking to the people that brought you joy can help you. Your hobbies don’t do anything for you, you don’t get involved in games anymore, films and tv shows just don’t seem to let you escape and music can most of the time make you feel worse. How can you be happy if everything makes you feel shitty? This is why I love the whole You’re not trying hard enough sentiment, because those people don’t get how hard it was for you to get out of bed, to get dressed, to eat and to even talk to people; which renders that sentiment invalid.

I must say though, since my depression has gone from clinical to mild, I’ve enjoyed looking back at ignorant people. They honestly look stupid, and when you tell people about these things they laugh with you about those people. My simple statement to ignorant people who honestly believe that people can just choose happiness is do you really want to humiliate yourself and make yourself look stupid?

I could go on about why we can’t just choose happiness, but that would defeat the purpose of letting people do their own research and come to their own educated opinions. As with the previous post, there will be more to come (and plenty of positive posts to come as well) so feel free to follow if you want to see more!